An insider's tour of France's most picturesque wine region, with the best food and wineries in BurgundyBy David Downie

S
ay "French wine," and like Pavlov's dog, just about everyone will bark Bordeaux or Burgundy  the "Big B" regions. If you're into muscular Merlot and Cabernet, then Southwest France's flat, sandy Bordelais  the region surrounding the city of Bordeaux  is your ticket. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay lovers should head instead to Burgundy's suite of rolling, pocket-sized vineyards, which start about 100 miles south of Paris near Chablis and extend 150 miles or so farther south via Dijon to Mâcon in central-eastern France.

Vast and varied, the region  "Bourgogne," in French  covers most of eastern-central France. From a winegrower's perspective, it's the bridge linking Champagne to the Beaujolais. The most expensive wines being produced in the world today come from Burgundy's spectacular Domaine de la Romanée-Conti on the Côte de Nuits. Unsung, some of the most underrated, underpriced whites in France are quietly grown and bottled in the Côte Chalonnaise and southern Mâconnais.

There's more to the difference between the two Big Bs than a varietal divide. Sure, Bordeaux is an attractive city surrounded by fabulous châteaux. But even without wine, Burgundy would be wonderful, thanks to its one-of-a-kind scenery and cultural history.

This is pretty much the land of dreamy visions. Rivers run through it  big ones like the Saône, Yonne, and Loire  keeping Burgundy's uncluttered, rolling hills emerald-green year-round. More Romanesque churches, abbeys, and monasteries raise their bell towers here than in the rest of the country combined. Scores of picture-perfect stone-built villages, like Rully or Solutré, perch on vine-groomed limestone escarpments  les côtes  their glazed-tile roofs glistening and foundations set deep.

Each of Burgundy's half dozen subregions has a distinctive character arising from feudal times or as far back as the Iron Age. This was the heart of ancient Gaul, a place where locals still bemoan Julius Caesar's conquest in 52 B.C. During the French Revolution, the area was divided into four administrative départements. Taken north to south, they are Yonne, Nièvre, Côte-d'Or, and Saône-et-Loire.

Burgundians cling to their heritage, and it shows in everything from the singsong accent full of rolling Rs to the one-lane farm roads and almost obsessive way food and wine are revered. At worst, this reverence brings with it kitschy folklore, sound-and-light shows, winemakers and peasants in silly costumes, and restaurants, museums, and wineries that feel like theme parks of gastronomy. At best, it reflects Burgundy's role in defining classic French cuisine. Last century's legendary chefs built gastronomic pilgrimage sites along the ParisLyon highway. Today, four luxurious Michelin three-star restaurants and a constellation of prestigious but less formal hotel-restaurants and irresistible country auberges that serve food in a casual, often family setting dot the region.

Menus and Trends

Bugundians claim the trend is strictly no trends; tradition reigns. That's why Burgundy's ethereal gougère  the original cheese-puff, not cheesy junk food  is still everywhere. Favorite dishes include jambon persillé, which merges chunky cured ham and parsley in aspic. Plump escargots  raised on snail farms these days  are baked in the shell with garlicky parsley-butter. Frog's legs get the same treatment but are pan-fried. Oeufs en meurette are ultraclassic French poached eggs in a red-wine reduction sauce. Crayfish tails swim in creamy Nantua butter sauce. Pike, eel, and other river fish end up as Matelote stew or sautéed, often with Pinot Noir. There's free-range, premium-quality chicken from Bresse simply roasted or sautéed with cream. Roasted veal or sautéed rabbit come with Dijon mustard sauce. Long-cooked lièvre royale is hare simmered in rich blood-and-wine sauce. Thick-sliced bone-in baked ham is right up there in popularity and deliciousness with Charolais beef or lamb that is slow-stewed, grilled, or pan-fried with butter. And Burgundy truffles and wild mushrooms appear in dozens of recipes.

The region also boasts France's biggest herds of goats, and the phenomenal chèvre  cheese made from their milk  comes in every imaginable form. Possibly the world's most lusciously pungent cow's-milk cheese is northern Burgundy's Époises, while milder Citeaux is still made by monks at Citeaux Abbey. For dessert, mille-feuilles, fruit tarts, and chocolate confections, yes, but also sugar-sprinkled pets-de-nonne fritters, gingerbread from Dijon, aniseed bonbons from the abbey of Flavigny and marzipan "rocks" called Rochers du Morvan.

Tradition may reign, but the average calorie count has been reduced over the last 20 years, since the late, great Bernard Loiseau of La Côte d'Or restaurant in Saulieu invented what critics initially derided as "cuisine à l'eau"water-based, low-fat cooking that's a lot more flavorful than it sounds. Traditional ingredients reappear now in novel ways, and because of huge demand, most snails and frog's legs and even some fresh-water fish come from outside the region. These days, young Burgundian chefs also serve seafood trucked in from the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Even olive oil appears on some tables. Haute cuisine of the kind found in Paris, Sydney, or San Francisco stars on marquee menus  sometimes it's great, sometimes it's just fussy and rootless.

The Wine

Like Bordeaux, Burgundy's appellations (geographic areas where grapes are grown) and rankings (by the French government) are maddeningly complex. Unlike Bordeaux, which has centuries-old ties to the merchant class, they reflect a thousand years of winegrowing begun by the monks at Cluny Abbey in the Mâconnais region. When the French Revolution came along in 1789, church properties were divvied up, resulting in today's 4,600 wineries, most with tiny vineyards five to ten acres. Burgundy's 101 appellations fall into five main wine districts called "vignobles," including Chablis, Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune, Côte Chalonnaise, and Mâconnais.

Rankings break down into four "crus"  growths determined by the cultural intangibles that constitute the vague French notion of "terroir." Terroir is applied liberally to food and wine and means more than "land" or "territory." It can refer to soil, climate, altitude, and a variety of geological factors. Topping the growth pyramid are Grands Crus, with Premiers Crus, Crus Communales (village appellations), and generic Crus Régionales falling one below the next. Grand Crus are subdivided into "climates"  mere parcels. Bottles thus designated are big-ticket items accounting for just one percent of white wines and two and a half percent of reds. But don't shun lesser appellations  some Communales and Régionales are as good as Premiers Crus. And a few of the region's 18 cooperative wineries make remarkable wines. It's best to read Burgundy labels carefully because Grands Crus, Premiers Crus, and Communales can all bear the same name  if they come from the same village.

Pinot Noir is the red grape of the great and good wines of Burgundy, while Gamay crops up primarily in the Mâconnais, producing quaffable bottlings  with a few exceptions. César is an ancient indigenous variety that brings body to some thin northern Burgundian wines. The region makes twice as much white as red, nearly all with the Chardonnay grape, also used in sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne, originally from the village of Rully. When too tart to drink straight, the second most common Burgundy white, Aligoté, is stirred with "cassis" black-currant syrup and served as Kir (add Champagne, and it's a Kir Royal).

The battle over oaky, high-tech wines has deeply affected Burgundy's winemaking. The big oak barrels and vats that were traditionally used are still around, but many more winemakers employ toasted new-oak casks to impart vanilla and other so-called "New World" flavors to wines. Luckily, the soil and climate mean Burgundy wines will never develop the fat of their American or Australian counterparts. The global marketchasing mania of fruit-forward bottlings hasn't really taken hold here. Burgundian Pinot Noirs are still subtle, complex, and lightly tannic, with an intense violet nose. Chardonnays range from nervy or mineral to rich and honeyed. Those with heavy vanilla overlays are usually made for export  or to please certain American critics who favor huge, flowery, fat wines. The biggest Burgundy whites and reds take time to develop, aging gracefully for 20 or 30 years.

There are more than 100 major négociants  wine wholesalers that now do everything from bottling, aging, and selling others' wines to growing and making their own, and their numbers are rising as they snap up family-run properties.

Making great wine in Burgundy is challenging  centuries of winegrowing have impoverished the soil, and the climate is tricky, with harsh winters and short summers. Small, steep vineyards are labor-intensive, which partly explains the low yields and premium prices we all pay. Reputation, quality, and increasing worldwide demand explain the rest. So while most European wine regions are battling bear markets, Burgundy is bullish.

Each subregion has its wine route  "Route des Vins"  with hundreds of wineries open to the public. They range from the ridiculous to the sublime. This isn't the Napa Valley: Many top wineries are accessible only to professionals. It's always best to make an appointment, especially at prestige properties.

David Downie is a Paris-based food and travel writer. His work has appeared in Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Saveur, Departures, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and many other publications. His latest book is Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light. He's currently at work on a travelogue-memoir about crossing France on foot, Hit the Road, Jacques).

Alison Harris, who took most of the pictures for this story, is a Paris-based food, travel, and portrait photographer, and has illustrated books by Sophia Loren, Marcella Hazan, and other international best-selling authors.

Note: All information about restaurants, wineries, and other culinary destinations listed in this article is subject to change without notice. Please contact the establishment for the most current information.